Why is python not written in C++ ?

[Grant Edwards]

On 2010-08-04, Paul Rubin <no.email at nospam.invalid> wrote:
> Grant Edwards <invalid at invalid.invalid> writes:

>> The issue that would prevent its use where I work is the inability to
>> hire anybody who knows Ada.  ...
>> That said, the last time I looked the Ada spec was only something like
>> 100 pages long, so a case could be made that it won't take long to
>> learn. 
>
> Well, I don't know Ada (I've read about it but not written actual
> code), so maybe I shouldn't be the one saying this, but geez, it's
> another imperative, procedural language, like Algol or Pascal or even
> C.  Its type is much more serious than C's but shouldn't be a problem
> for anyone who uses C++ or Java generics.

I agree 100%.

> It also has a real module system unlike more commonly used languages,
> but 1) that part seems easy to understand; and 2) usually that's used
> for multi-programmer projects, so as long as there's some reasonable
> proportion of experienced users on the team, the inter-module
> interfaces should be sensible and less experienced users can just
> program to existing interfaces and/or get some help from others.
> Ada's module system is much simpler than (say) ML's.
>
>> I don't know how long the C++ language spec is, but I'm betting it's
>> closer to 1000 than 100. 
>
> I don't know about an official spec.  Stroustrup's "The C++
> programming language" is about 1000 pp, but it's a textbook, with
> lots of examples, exercises, etc.  I read through an earlier
> (shorter) edition in a couple of evenings a long time ago and it all
> made sense.  It has some hairy aspects like the notorious template
> metaprogramming, but most users simply won't get involved with that.
> Python has its own obscure and confusing features if that matters.

I couldn't get anybody to use Python either. :/

The problem has nothing to do with the relative merits of the
languages.  The problem is inertia.

> I think I'm a reasonably good Python programmer but I've never
> written a special metaclass and wouldn't really know how to.

-- 
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